Miraculous rescue of Turkish woman

Turkish rescue workers pulled a 24-year-old woman from the wreckage of a 10-storey building on Monday, one week after it collapsed killing scores of people.

10 Feb 2004 03:27 GMT

On Sunday a 16-year-old boy was taken out alive from the rubble

NTV television showed rescue workers applauding as the woman, named as Yasemin Yaprakci, was carried from the rubble to a waiting ambulance on a stretcher.

Anatolia news agency said Yaprakci was very tired after her ordeal but NTV quoted her as saying: "I am fine, don't worry."

Rescue workers tracked her down after hearing her cries for water, NTV said.

Her rescue came one day after a 16-year-old boy was also dragged alive from the rubble.

The death toll from the collapse of the building now stands at 84, NTV said.

Faulty construction

Officials say faulty construction caused the 36-apartment building to collapse last Monday in an affluent district of Konya, a city 250km south of the capital Ankara.

Police have arrested two contractors over the incident.

The Konya building collapsed during the holiday of Eid Al Adha last Monday when some families were entertaining guests, making it more difficult to estimate the final number of people trapped inside.

A five-metre-high pile of debris was all that remained of the recently built block.

Turkey's poor building standards and widespread corruption have often been blamed for building collapses and the high death tolls from earthquakes that frequently strike the country, but few builders or developers have been convicted.